USA TODAY Review

Layered artistry in 'Divisadero'

Michael Ondaatje's new novel tells a story that's simpler than the storytelling itself.

The author of The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion and Anil's Ghost layers elements of his stories to create a collaged rather than linear narrative. In the hands of a lesser writer, that might prove kaleidoscopic, even catastrophic. Not in this book. Not Ondaatje.

Divisadero begins on a California farm in the 1970s, where Anna, whose mother died giving birth to her, grows up inseparable from her adopted sister, Claire. Anna's solitary father also has taken in the orphaned neighbor boy, Coop, who's like a big brother to the girls and works as a farmhand.

Their tranquil lives are brutally interrupted one stormy night when Coop and Anna, then 16 and the book's primary narrator, are caught by her father in a sexual rendezvous. A violent fray follows and abruptly unravels the family.

Ondaatje fast-forwards 20 years. Coop, Anna and Claire haven't seen or heard from one another since that fateful night. Coop is now a novice card player in Nevada's casinos. Anna is a literary historian researching the life and works of World War I French poet/novelist Lucien Segura. Claire works for a public defender in San Francisco and visits the farm on weekends to tend to her aging father, whose one night of rage shaped their lives forever.

Deeper into the novel, most of the storytelling is done with mirrors and echoes. While living in Segura's abandoned farmhouse in rural France, Anna uncovers details from nearly a century earlier that reflect her own fragmented life. The parallels of Segura's world and his story become a novel within the novel that leaves Anna, Claire and Coop's tale unfinished.

A Sri Lankan-born Canadian, Ondaatje pulls off the plotlines masterfully. He connects the diverging tales through the story of expatriate Anna and her enigmatic Gypsy lover, Rafael. Changing the narrative rhythm between the two plotlines, he introduces more memorable characters, more scenes of majestic texture and captivating imagery, and more visceral violence. Often he revisits his themes: love and loss, separation and memory.

Be warned: The divided structure is likely to divide readers. Some will be put off by the duality and want to know the fate of Coop and the girls. Others, when they finish reading this magnificent novel, will reread it to again be fascinated by Ondaatje's skills.

From its first to last telling sentence ("Some birds in the almost-dark are flying as close to their reflection as possible"), this aesthetic tale, poetic with human detail, is a rare and precious pleasure.